Highlanders hope to heat up on the road

GAME DAY: VICTORIA AT KAMLOOPS, 6 P.M.

It’s the opening weekend all over again for the Victoria Highlanders, but this time on the road and without the comforts of home.

The Highlanders — who opened the Pacific Coast Soccer League season at Royal Athletic Park earlier this month with a 1-1 tie against Kamloops and 2-1 victory over Abbotsford — will meet those clubs again tonight in Kamloops and Sunday in the Fraser Valley against Abbotsford.

Victoria (2-1-4) has done OK since that opening weekend, while Kamloops (1-2-1) and Abbotsford (0-1-3) have struggled.

But Highlanders head coach Dave Dew expects to see more Kamloops-area players, who went away to play collegiately in the CIS, back today to supplement the Thompson Rivers University alumni on the squad.

The Magnuson Ford squad of Abbotsford presents more of an unknown quantity, although it will certainly be well coached by Ian Knight, a former England U-21 player who played with Sheffield Wednesday and Grimsby Town before a devastating leg injury at age 20 in a 1987 FA Cup fixture against Chester City curtailed his promising pro career.

“Abbotsford is young and they are pushing a lot of their youth organization players through the [PCSL] club,” noted Dew, himself with strong coaching/training/academy ties to Sheffield Wednesday.

Abbotsford, however, has a big perk this season. As PCSL playoff tournament host, it is automatically qualified as one of the four post-season teams.

“That [bye into the post-sea- son] is immaterial. We are in league play, and fighting for every point, which is crucial,” said Knight.

“We’re at the younger end, but the boys are faring well.”

The Mid Isle Mariners (3-1-1), featuring several players from the nationally successful Vancouver Island University Mariners program, are in Abbotsford today to play Knight’s squad and then are in Vancouver on Sunday to meet the winless FC Tigers (0-4-2).

Jordan de Graaf of the Mariners leads the PCSL in scoring with four goals.

The Highlanders, meanwhile, will have to be wary of a couple of opposition snipers this weekend, as Justin Wallace of Kamloops and Connor O’Neill of Abbotsford are tied for second in league scoring, with Mitchell Popadynetz of Penticton, on three goals each.